I don't understand why the list of reasons you gave support the idea that government should be able to just steal the hotel from its owner without first charging the owner of a crime.
> The hotel is, let's not sugarcoat it, a blighted flophouse. . . .
If the government wants to impose some standards on how a hotel should be run, it should publish laws to that effect and the penalties should something on the order of fines or loss of business license, not loss of the property.
> The owners of the hotel were warned repeatedly by local law enforcement and an intervention of local hotel owners; specific measures were suggested to minimize the problems at this place and weren't taken; the hotel had no security, and its drug countermeasures consisted of a list of persons not to rent to again.
It is not the duty of private citizens to act as an unpaid quasi-police force.
* The hotel owners made no policy changes after a methamphetamine lab was discovered in one of their rooms.
> The hotel owners made no changes after the dead body of a heroin overdose victim was found in one of their rooms.
Are they required by law to make changes?
> Drug deals weren't simply occurring at the hotel; the Tewskbury PD repeatedly discovered drug dealers operating full-time out of rooms in the hotel.
If and when police discover illegal activity, they are free to do their jobs and arrest people. It is not the hotel owners' job to act as a police force.
> The owners of the hotel repeatedly admitted under oath that they had continuing knowledge of drug crimes occurring on their premises, and had no policies to investigate the use of their rooms.
Knowledge that crimes have occurred in the past does not mean that the hotel owners had a duty to act as an unpaid police force.
There's a whole weird history of civil asset forfeiture being abused, such as when the one black guy in a rural Ohio town is pulled over on his way to buy a new truck with cash, and the cops seize the cash under CAF rules on suspicion that the guy's a drug dealer. I AM NOT ARGUING THAT CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURE IS OK. But you'd want to be careful (not "agree with me", just, careful) being knee-jerk about this stuff.
So what were these guys doing, and how is it different?
> The hotel is, let's not sugarcoat it, a blighted flophouse. . . .
If the government wants to impose some standards on how a hotel should be run, it should publish laws to that effect and the penalties should something on the order of fines or loss of business license, not loss of the property.
> The owners of the hotel were warned repeatedly by local law enforcement and an intervention of local hotel owners; specific measures were suggested to minimize the problems at this place and weren't taken; the hotel had no security, and its drug countermeasures consisted of a list of persons not to rent to again.
It is not the duty of private citizens to act as an unpaid quasi-police force.
* The hotel owners made no policy changes after a methamphetamine lab was discovered in one of their rooms.
> The hotel owners made no changes after the dead body of a heroin overdose victim was found in one of their rooms.
Are they required by law to make changes?
> Drug deals weren't simply occurring at the hotel; the Tewskbury PD repeatedly discovered drug dealers operating full-time out of rooms in the hotel.
If and when police discover illegal activity, they are free to do their jobs and arrest people. It is not the hotel owners' job to act as a police force.
> The owners of the hotel repeatedly admitted under oath that they had continuing knowledge of drug crimes occurring on their premises, and had no policies to investigate the use of their rooms.
Knowledge that crimes have occurred in the past does not mean that the hotel owners had a duty to act as an unpaid police force.